The offense of being hungry

Our opinion: Gov. Andrew Cuomo is right to end fingerprinting of food stamp recipients. There are better ways to secure the program than to demean people for being poor or on bad times.

There aren’t too many things in life that require you to be fingerprinted. A crime, of course. A sensitive government job. Oh, and a request for public help to keep you and your children from going hungry in just two states — New York and Arizona.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo, to his credit, is about to make that just one state.

New York has actually been letting counties forgo the requirement for people on food stamps to be fingerprinted since 2007, when former Gov. Eliot Spitzer approved a waiver. Only New York City continues to fully apply this offensive, counter-productive strategy to a program designed to help people, not stigmatize them. Regulations filed last week would end fingerprinting statewide once they take effect after a 45-day comment period.

And good riddance. As Mr. Cuomo noted, 48 states have found ways to guard against fraud and duplication without making people feel like criminals.

Supporters of fingerprinting, no doubt, will say there’s a principle at stake — that such safeguards are needed to insure that public money doesn’t go to people who don’t deserve it.

Then why stop at food stamps? Why not require fingerprinting for anyone who wants a government check?

How about every senior citizen, before they can collect Social Security, or get health benefits through Medicaid?

Why not anyone applying for a federal or state tax refund?

And don’t forget about all those government contractors, including their CEOs and boards of directors.

Let’s not forget every unemployed person, every student taking out a loan, or every doctor and hospital putting in for Medicaid or Medicare reimbursement.

What, in short, makes a needy person more suspect than anyone else applying for government money?

Nothing, of course. The reality is that Medicaid cheats and dishonest contractors steal billions more from the public than poor, hungry people ever could. But nothing makes some people — self-important politicians and bullies come to mind — feel quite as good about going after someone as when those someones can’t defend themselves. The poor and the needy are easy scapegoats, without political power or well-heeled lobbying organizations.

The reality is, too, that food stamp users are typically people who are trying to make a go of it in life, but can’t. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities notes that among food stamp recipients, working people with children outnumber those who are unemployed by more than three to one, based on U.S. Department of Agriculture data for 2010. And annual samplings of the food stamp program have shown that only about three percent of payments go to people who are ineligible or collected too much money — often through bureaucratic errors, not intentional fraud.

Some, like Mayor Michael Bloomberg, suggest that with a 70 percent or so participation rate, the city’s food stamp program is successful. Such boasts ignore that fact that New York ranks among the states with the lowest rate of participation of eligible people, according to the USDA.

And some particularly reactionary voices in this debate say it’s good if the program has a stigma attached to it, so people won’t get too dependent on it. To which we can only say, try being poor and hungry for a while, and then tell us all how much fun it is.

Jay Jochnowitz

9 Responses

It’s interesting how the Republican party is trying to use this issue to denigrate the President by calling him the food stamp president. Isn’t it a good thing to feed the hungry? Is America so hard hearted now that we do not practice good Christian ethics? What the Republicans are really saying is they want to stop the corruption and theft in the program. Congress may be a good place to start if you want to attack corruption and theft and political graft so take a hard look at yourself and then when you have cleaned your own house then maybe you have the credentials to start to clean up elsewhere

So, maybe, in some people’s eyes, being called the “food stamp President” is a good thing, since the “food stamp President is feeding those who are struggling to get by in the age of Obamanomics.

Of course, it might be better if the economy were to pick up enough to employ more people, increase people’s incomes to the point that they no longer needed food stamps, and grow robustly. That way, people could take care of themselves, instead of being dependent on the government. What a welcome change that would be from the economy of the Obama years!

Food Stamps is one of the most abused systems we have. While helping people get good nutritious food is a noble gesture, that is not what happens. Twinkies, Potato Chips, 16 ounce Pepsi, Slim Jim’s, Lobster, Steak, manufactured cookies, cakes, etc are all foods that should be prohibited.

There is a fix for this dysfunctional system. The state should buy foods in bulk and distribute this food in bulk to the counties. Now the county establishes a warehouse where we take those receiving the food stamps and put them to work packaging the foo for delivery to other recipients. Now instead of a box of cookies form Stewarts you get flour, sugar, and the rest of the ingredients to make your own.

Interestingly, a family of 4 gets $668 per month, a family of 1 gets $200. I feed a family of two for $250 a month, then again, I’m spending my money and not someone elses.

This isn’t a Democrat v Republican issue; to make it partisan shows a total ignorance to the problem. It’s a common sense issue that needs to be addressed. There is far to much abuse in this system.

In these hard times, it is understandable that people need assistance. What Governor Cuomo need to do is to hold people accountable for abusing the system. Those who are receiving assistance should be tested for drug use. Being on assistance should not be a “career”, it should be there to help people get back on their feet to work again.

Having record numbers of people on food stamps (or disability, unemployment, in public housing, or just about any other form of government assistance) is a “good thing?” Does that apply to all forms of corporate welfare also? When all those banks needed government bailouts, was that a “good thing” too? Is having so many in so much need of government assistance really a positive indicator of the recipients health and well being?

Who are you penalizing by finding adults who have been fingerprinted are criminals? Not only are those adults denied foodstamps, but any children they have will go hungry through no fault of their own. Welfare and Foodstamps should be earned by those who receive them. Maybe then they won’t be viewed as just another entitlement. I WANT MY OBAMA BUCKS!

The supporters of fingerprinting and drug testing have a very interesting stereotype in mind when they rant and rave about “those people”. The belief that people on assistance are on it by choice and are a lower form of life than themselves is pure narcissism. The truth is, the supporters of stigmatizing the less fortunate are so miserable in their own lives that the only way they can feel good about themselves is by taking cheap shots against those who can’t defend themselves instead of the powerful who were much more likely to have lowered their standard of living than any food stamp recipient.

Add to this hatred of “those people” the complete ignorance of how economies actually work and the conditions brought on by 30+ years of completely bogus “trickle down” middle class destroying economics and you have the ingredients of what has become the world’s largest hate group.

The premise of this article is sexist. Women have the right to decide if they give birth. I fail to see why they should be able to exercise this right guilt free and at public expense.
To gain some insight into the real world asks Albany Social Services for a family that you can play Santa Klaus to. For a few hundred dollars you can have a few kids think the world of you and have your view formed by facts rather than political theories.